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Trump’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Equals Immigrant Cruelty

President’s supporters are gleeful but Everglades jail could prove to be a humanitarian and environmental tragedy

If You Like Zohran Mamdani, You’ll Love His Dad

What Zohran Mamdani shows is that the tradition his father represents – a postcolonial critique that is sceptical of moralism, wary of elite consensus, attentive to material structures – is not necessarily an anachronism, but can be a blueprint.

This Week in People’s History, Jul 9–15, 2025

The huge mushroom cloud resulting from testing an H-bomb
‘Nuclear Weapons Endanger the Human Race’ (1955), Standing Up for the Wrong Thing (1955), Jobless Workers on the March (1935), ‘The FBI Can Do No Wrong’ (1975), On the Eve of Destruction (1965)

A Communist Wins the Left Primary in Chile

When Jeanette Jara’s victory in the left primary was certain, President Boric, congratulated her and said, 'Now, let’s all work together for unity to rally the majority of our compatriots to continue building a fairer, safer, and happier country’.

Every Word Is To Be Construed in Favor of Liberty

Joshua D. Rothman reviews Zaakir Tameez’s biography “Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation.”

Did Baby Talk Give Rise to Language?

The way that human adults talk to young children is unique among primates, a new study found. That might be one secret to our species’ grasp of language.

The Oligarchs’ Prize in Trump’s Budget-Busting Bill

Avoiding an income-tax increase is nice, but that’s not the bill’s greatest gift to the rich.

The Parrot in the Machine

The artificial intelligence industry depends on plagiarism, mimicry, and exploited labor, not intelligence.

Cautionary Tales From the New Left

In a new memoir, New Left leader Michael Ansara wants to impart lessons from his own time as a campus activist to today’s protesters. But his later role in a corruption scandal that set back Teamsters reform for decades offers its own cautionary less

I’ve Worked at Google for Decades. I’m Sickened by It.

For the first time, I feel driven to speak publicly, because our company is now powering state violence across the globe.
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Culture

books

“World Without End” Unveils a World With Hope (Still)

Toby LeBlanc Southern Review of Books
"This book is needed," writes reviewer LeBlanc. "Instead of sharing hard-and-fast edicts, the kind desired by those with a fundamentalist frame of mind, Park advocates for courage and conversation."

film

28 Years Later and the Social Life of Catastrophe

Eileen Jones Jacobin
The latest installment of the 28 Days Later franchise returns with more than zombies — it explores the strange new norms that follow collapse. It’s a vision of survival horror that focuses not just on the infected but on the ways humanity adapts.

food

The Secret Life of Government Cheese

Colleen Hamilton Ambrook Research
The U.S. government encouraged producers to produce cheese and the USDA began stockpiling the surplus. Some of the same companies that benefited from USDA dairy surplus purchases now rent space in the very caverns once used to house that surplus.

Labor

labor

Educators Union Rejects Anti-Defamation League, Cuts Ties

Emmaia Gelman Labor Notes
The three million-member National Education Association approved a measure that the NEA “will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or statistics.

labor

Stealing From the Poor

Heidi Shierholz Economic Policy Institute
The radical Republican budget bill steals from the poor to give tax cuts to the rich

labor

PSC, Higher-Ed Unions Slam Federal Research Funding Cuts

Crystal Lewis The Chief
President of PSC and other members rally with signs saying "stop the war of universities". th In addition to the grants already defunded, the Trump administration has proposed setting a 15-percent cap on indirect cost reimbursements, leaving a gap many public colleges and universities would be unable to cover, the advocates said.

Friday nite video

video

'The House I Live In' | Paul Robeson

These lyrics were written by Abel Meeropol (who later adopted the children of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg) under the pen name Lewis Allen (1943); the music was composed by Earl Robinson. This 1947 cover by Paul Robeson includes all the original verses.

video

Gaza | Along the Green Line: Episode 3

In the third and final episode of Along the Green Line, reporter Matthew Cassel heads to the south of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.